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.\"	@(#)locate.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
.\"
.Dd April 19, 2004
.Dt LOCATE 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm locate
.Nd find files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl d Ar dbpath
.Ar pattern
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
searches a database for all pathnames which match the specified
.Ar pattern  .
The database is recomputed periodically, and contains the pathnames
of all files which are publicly accessible.
.Pp
Shell globbing and quoting characters (``*'', ``?'', ``\e'', ``[''
and ``]'')
may be used in
.Ar pattern  ,
although they will have to be escaped from the shell.
Preceding any character with a backslash (``\e'') eliminates any special
meaning which it may have.
The matching differs in that no characters must be matched explicitly,
including slashes (``/'').
.Pp
As a special case, a pattern containing no globbing characters (``foo'')
is matched as though it were ``*foo*''.
.Pp
Options:
.Bl -tag -width flag
.It Fl d Ar dbpath
Sets the list of databases to search to
.Ar dbpath
which can name one or more database files separated by ``:'',
an empty component in the list represents the default database.
The environment variable
.Ar LOCATE_PATH
has the same effect.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb -compact
.It Pa /var/db/locate.database
Default database
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Nm
exits with a 0 if a match is found, and \*[Gt]0 if no match is found or if
another problem (such as a missing or corrupted database file) is
encountered.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr find 1 ,
.Xr fnmatch 3 ,
.Xr locate.conf 5 ,
.Xr weekly.conf 5 ,
.Xr locate.updatedb 8
.Rs
.%A Woods, James A.
.%D 1983
.%T "Finding Files Fast"
.%J ";login"
.%V 8:1
.%P pp. 8-10
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command appeared in
.Bx 4.4 .